Site of the Day

January 2009

Denise Witmer, the About.com Guide to Parenting Teens, hosted this month's All About Parenting blog carnival, with a New Year's theme of resolutions. In addition to my post about resolutions for other people, you'll find submissions from the guides to adoption, work-at-home moms, working moms, family fitness, single parents, grandparents, pregnancy, parenting young adults, learning disabilities, parenting tweens, stay-at-home moms, stay-at-home dads, and children's books.

Your Saturday super-sized listing of amusements, including a family activity, a site for the kids, a shopping site, a site offering humor or inspiration about parenting children with special needs, and a site that's just silly or fun.

I've shared my instructions for composing an easy five-paragraph essay, but if your child responds more to filling in blanks on a screen than writing on a piece of paper, this neat site may finally get the writing going. By following the program's instructions, students can create a basic outline, fill it up with details, then process a complete essay (though one that will probably need some proofreading before turn-in time). The site is free, but to save or edit essays online, you'll need the free registration.

Kawasaki Disease has been much in the news lately, with news articles on the death of John Travolta's son mentioning his diagnosis with the disease as a child, and Backstreet Boy Brian Litrell announcing that his son was diagnosed with it. On the site for the Kawasaki Disease Foundation, you can learn more about the illness, meet some non-celebrity children who've had it, and find support if your child is one of them.

The About.com guide to Autism, Lisa Jo Rudy, has put up some great visual posters on her site illustrating specific elements of soccer in a way that can reach kids with autism. There's also a list of tips and hints for including a child with autism in a game of soccer.

In order to help increase the availability of Medicaid-provided home and community-based services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the ARC has set up a site to coordinate efforts of state groups and individuals. From the site you can share your story to help others understand the crisis; sign up for updates about the waiting list crisis; and donate to the Waiting List Campaign.

(No longer online) "One in every 3,000 to 4,000 children will have a stroke. Over half of children that have had a stroke will develop lifelong cognitive or motor disability. Up to a third of children that have had a stroke will have a recurrent stroke." To raise awareness of those facts, and with it money for research, a parent has proposed a petition to make the first Saturday in May, which is often dedicated to childhood stroke awareness on a state-by-state basis, a National Childhood Stroke Awareness Day. Add your electronic signature here.

Your Saturday super-sized listing of amusements, including a family activity, a site for the kids, a shopping site, a site offering humor or inspiration about parenting children with special needs, and a site that's just silly or fun.